No Such Things
by Cadet Deming
Summary: A Cobra Halloween Story


Halloween Fic Challenge: No Such Thing  
  
By Cadet Deming  
  
Sorry about the long absence. Here's my answer to the Halloween Fic challenge. Horror/Comedy. Rated PG-13. Some adult language and gore. I don't own the rights to GIJOE, Marvel, Devil's Due, and Hasbro do, so please don't sue.  
  
Dr. Mindbender walked into the small coroner's office in the basement. He wasn't happy to be there. As the terrorist organization "Cobra's Head of Science and Interrogation and de facto second in command, he had a million other projects he'd rather be working on.  
"Are you the coroner-viper, I assume," he asked slightly condescendingly to the man sitting at the desk in front of him. He never paid much attention to the multitude of Cobra troopers he came across, unless they were the victims of one of his many experiments, or female. The soldiers tended to blend together in his mind.  
A man with sandy blonde hair and shifty eyes stood up from his desk and said: "Yes sir, I didn't really want to call you."  
Mindbender frowned.  
The coroner stuttered and continued: ".didn't want to call you because you're such a busy and important man. But this calls for serious scientific inquiry."  
"Well, what is it then? I haven't got all night. I'm due for dinner with our great leader Serpentor soon, and you know how he hates to wait."  
"Serpentor, uh, yeah. The body's on the slab in the other room," the coroner said, gathering up gloves and walking towards the door on the other side of the office.  
Mindbender took a look around the room. Along with medical charts there were various posters of movies like "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Dracula". On the desk where most "normal" men kept photos of their girlfriends or families, was an autographed picture of Sarah Michelle Gellar from the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".  
He sneered and followed the man into the other room. There was a body on the table, partially covered from the waist down.  
He pulled out the corpse's profile and read aloud: "Security Viper #372. Assigned to Cobras Terrordrome Southern Sector. Found murdered at approximately 0600 Hours on 10/30/03. Investigations revealed no discernible attack from GIJOE or other known enemies. Cause of death: Two puncture wounds to neck".  
"Puncture wounds to neck.ring a bell at all Sir?" asked the coroner- viper.  
"No. It could be a random murder. Maybe he lost a bet on the Siegie- Stratoviper basketball game and couldn't pay it off. Or a mugger with weapon that doesn't cause noise," said the doctor, as he examined the two jagged marks surrounded by crusted blood.  
"Well, when I performed the autopsy, I found the man's blood had been drained almost completely dry. Do you know what that means, Sir".  
Mindbender stared at him disdainfully and said: "What"?  
"It's vampires! Cobra has a Vampire on the loose!"  
Dr. Mindbender threw back his head and laughed. "Vampires? You really want to know what I think? I think you're a paranoid freak that spends way too much time with corpses for company and has let horror movies get to his head. Do you honestly think a fiend that sucks the life out of men, well, aside from the Baroness, is stalking Cobra soldiers? Vampires are a fairy tale. There's no such thing. Maybe someone is actually playing a prank on you, it being so close to Halloween and all. Except you're not important enough to pull a joke on".  
"People also thought there'd be no such thing as cloning or raising the dead either, but you went all Dr. Frankenstein and created Serpentor from the DNA of history's biggest tyrants.  
And isn't Count Vlad Tepes, better known as Count Dracula, one of Serpentor's donors? Maybe he's the vampire.  
Although Mindbender had his own resentments towards the Cobra Emperor, he kept those feelings to himself, showing only blind loyalty to any observers. "How dare you accuse our magnificent leader? You speak treason! I'll have you demoted to septic-viper. I'll have you fired! I'll have you cremated alive!" shouted Mindbender, clutching at the man's lapels.  
"Bodies! I can get you bodies!" shouted the coroner.  
"I can get all the bodies I want at the Cobra Island cat house we all tell the Baroness is a Nurse's Dormitory".  
"I meant cadavers, bodies for your medical research. Ever since Tomax and Xamot passed proposition 89 decreeing that all deceased soldiers be cremated because it was more cost-effective than burial? I can sneak the bodies out the back door. You can use them for your research. Just.please believe me."  
Mindbender calmed down a little, taking in how legitimately frightened the man was. He looked at the corpse again. It was abnormally pale. And the gashes on the neck were like nothing he'd ever seen before.  
"Very well. You have made a tempting offer. I still think you're insane, but I'll let you live and keep your job. But don't spread your madness to anyone else. Your vampire theory stays within these walls. That's an order."  
"Thank you, but can I cremate it now?"  
"You just said you were going to stop cremations."  
"But if I don't burn it or run a steak through its heart, it'll become a minion vampire and bite me."  
"You really are delusional. Fine, burn it. And stop watching reruns of Buffy The Vampire Slayer on the FX channel. It's rotting you're already damaged brain," fumed Mindbender, storming off. Although as he walked down the darkened corridor, he hurried quicker than need be, and avoided the shadows.  
  
20 Minutes Later  
  
"You're late Mindbender," said an angry man in an elaborate Cobra- shaped headdress.  
"I'm sorry, Oh Great Serpentor, I was." he thought back to the coroner's vampire story and how crazy it sounded.".I had an experiment run longer than expected."  
"Maybe you should plan better. My food is already getting cold," said Serpentor, sitting down and tearing into a steak his plate.  
Mindbender sat staring at the empty placemat in front of him.  
"Er.mine hasn't arrived yet."  
"Oh, it must have slipped my mind to order yours too."  
"Of course. Because it's not about you," muttered the Dr. under his breath.  
"What was that," asked Serpentor.  
"I said.er.could you pass me something to drink? Some wine perhaps?"  
"You know I never drink.wine."  
"Dinner Salad? Rolls? Tap Water in a crystal glass? ANYTHING?"  
Finally, Serpentor snapped out of his self-centered revelry. "Oh, you need dinner too". He pressed a button on an intercom. "Cook-Viper? Get Mindbender dinner. Now. This I command."  
"Thank you," said Mindbender. He drummed his fingers on the table as the hunger pangs rumbled in his stomach. He resentfully stared as the emperor rudely chomped down on the beast in front of him. Then, he noticed something odd about the steak. It was raw, not just pink in the middle but all the way through. And it was bloody. Instead of au jus sauce, the plate was drenched in blood, crimson red against the white of the plate.  
Mindbender's thoughts drifted back to the body on the slab, so pale, and the bite marks. The coroner viper had seemed so sincere in his ravings. What if.no, couldn't be. But still, doubts started to linger in his mind.  
"Eh.oh great Serpentor, your meat seems awfully undercooked. I wouldn't want you to be risking your health.  
"I'm on the Raw Food diet. Same as Gwyneth Paltrow and Johnny Depp. It helps me stay under 5% bodyfat. I have to keep my comic book villain figure."  
"Raw food Diet? Funny you never mentioned it to me and I'm your doctor. And your asparagus looks a little overcooked."  
Serpentor put his fork down loudly. "Look, I like it rare because I don't have the patience for well done. And would you stop your incessant chattering about my diet? I'm an emperor, I eat whatever I want. Besides in my Eric the Baterer Berserker Viking days, I used to eat everything raw, and with unwashed hands, and I never died of food poisoning. Granted I was slaughtered in battle at the age of24 from an enemy barbarian invasion, but still salmonella free.  
"Ah yes, your DNA donor days. So, do you have explicit memories of these past lives, and deaths as well? Alexander the Great, Rasputin, VLAD TEPES, better known as COUNT DRACULA?"  
"When I concentrate, I can regress to my genetic forebears. Hmm. Alexander the Great."  
Serpentor closed his eyes, furrowing his brow. His face began to morph slightly into that of a younger man with an aquiline nose.  
He opened his eyes and said "Alexander of Macedonia, son of Phillip. I conquered most of the known world, and wept when I thought there was nothing left to conquer. Too bad no one would discover America for another thousand or so years later. I drank myself to death after that. Well, actually I drank myself to death after the man who was my domestic partner died. Except we didn't call them "domestic partners" back then. We were just, you know, 'being Greek'".  
"Could you change back into another DNA donor please," said Mindbender nervously.  
Serpentor morphed back into his usual countenance and sighed in remembrance. "Rasputin. Grigory Efimovich Novyk. The Romanovs gave him such power. That was back when Russia actually meant something in Eastern Europe. He could hypnotize people with his silver eyes you know. Funny thing about his death. They poisoned him. It didn't work. They shot him with bullets. Still, he prevailed. Finally they pushed him in the Neva River."  
"Perhaps you could regress into something more Halloween-oriented, like Count Dracula."  
"Count Dracula----Vlad Tepes?" Serpentor closed his eyes and once more transformed his features. His eye color morphed and a beard grew.  
"Ah yes. Vlad Tepes. I was such a tyrant. Murdered hundreds if not thousands. Tortured even more. I used to run steaks through people for my dinner entertainment as opposed to having tedious conversation with a boring doctor."  
"Stakes, yes. There's people who believe that vampire folklore is based on you," asked Mindbender, guardedly.  
"You mean on that book "Dracula" by Bram Stoker? It's true that he based certain aspects of the character on me. But a lot of the things were fiction: crosses, holy water, sleeping in coffins, all superstitions. "Which isn't to say that there weren't stories handed down before Stoker's time, tales told among Eastern European peasants huddled around the fire in the dark of night whispering the truth. Memories that there truly were creatures that were not quite living and not quite dead, but some shadowy thing in between. A predator that stalks the weak and unwary."  
Serpentor's newly darkened eyes seemed to glow brighter in the flicker of the weak candlelight on the table.  
Mindbender stood up sharply from his seat and exclaimed: "You know, it's late and I've lost my appetite. I've really got to get going now". He started to walk briskly towards the door.  
"Wait!" said Serpentor. "Are you afraid of me.well, aside from the fact that I could rip out your spine with my bare hands. You don't think I'm a .vampire?"  
"No of course not. There's no such.there's no scientific.well there was a soldier murdered last night. No one of any importance. But he died from two puncture wounds to the neck, like a horror movie vampire death."  
"And you thought, that since I'm partly Count Dracula?" Serpentor then changed back to his normal face. Mindbender relaxed again. Serpentor said, " Vlad Tepes was never a vampire. He was just a bloodthirsty tyrant whose legend faded like his life did. They cut off his head and sent it to his enemies the Turks. But he was never a vampire. Maybe I should rip your spine out after all for accusing me of such rubbish."  
"Oh no, I never believed any such thing. Not at all. I just let the ravings of that stupid coroner-viper get to me."  
"Coroner-viper, someone else in Cobra is accusing me? Who else believes this fairy tale?"  
"No one. I told him to keep his madness to himself."  
"Good, I'll pay a visit to him myself to see that he does. There can be no questioning of me, or treasonous whispers."  
"Of course not my Lord. But I really should get going now. I've lost my appetite."  
"Fine. Go now." pouted Serpentor.  
Mindbender left the room. Serpentor sat back down at his table.  
"Vlad Tepes was never a vampire," he sighed to himself. And then he traced his finger in the blood on the plate in front of him.  
Suddenly he morphed once again. His hair grew thicker and darker, and his eyes glowed silver.  
"Rasputin, on the other hand."  
At that moment there was a knock on the door.  
"It's the cook-viper your majesty. I brought Dr. Mindbender's dinner."  
"Bring it here, cook-viper. I've got-something to show you".  
He smiled then, the tips of his fangs glowing white. 


End file.
